Watertown republican. [volume] (Watertown, Wis.) 1860-1906, 1887-11-23
CURIOUS FIRES.

Singular Instances of Spontaneous Com
bustion Accounted For.
From Fire and Water.
Scarcely g. month passes that care
full investigation into the causes of fires
does not reveal some new hazard of
greater or less Importance, or make
known instances OF the starting OF
fires under circumstances hitherto
considered impossible.
Cotton IN bales has always been
supposed to be free from spontaneous
combustion until lately when case
was discovered in the store-house in
Northern New Jersey. A number of
bales of Sea Island cotton stored there
were found to be on fire, and when it
was extinguished in one spot it would
break out in another. A careful ex-
animation OF the cotton and it's con-
dition showed that it was roller
gin cotton that is cotton which has
not been run through gang OF saws,
after the pnethod of Eli Whitney, but
the lint had been drawn away from
the seed by pair of rolls, one large
and one small, set at just the distance
to keep the seeds from passing
through, while the fibre passes on and
goes into q bag.
1t was found in this lot of cotton
that some of the seeds had passed
into the rolls and been cracked, which
caused the oil to exude, saturating
the fibre, which was thus by the time
it arrived in the North in the proper
condition for spontaneous cOmbus-
ton. Careful and extensive inquiry
among Northern mills tailed to reveal
any other such case, and therefore it
can hardly be taken as strong objec-
tion against the use Of roller gins In
general. The ordinary roller gin is
practically a prehistoric tool, as it
has been in use since cotton was
known in ancient India. 1t is not
nearly so fast as the ordinary saw
gin, but is said to do it's work some
what better and with the least posi-
BILE injury to the fibre, and to be there
tore preferred for Sea Island cotton,
which is of long fibre, and almost
double the valne OF the ordinary
grades.
Another curious fire was that which
occurred in g. knife factory In Massa-
chusetts. In the middle of a room
small milling machine was working on
wood handles of knives. The dust or
small fragments of the wood
which were ground off were
drawn up through metal tube
about one foot in diameter by blow
er in the room above, and thence
forced through wooden pipe out in
to the air. A spark from an emery
wheel, Is feet away, from the milling
machine, struck window 20
feet away, and glancing back
entered the mouth of the metal tube
and set the hardwood dust on fire,
stream of which 20 feet In length
poured out of the wooden pipe into
the air. The alarm was given by peo-
pie outside. the workmen in the room
being entirely unaware of any fire.
Another peculiar instance was fire
started by some cotton waste which
an engineer in cleaning up q cotton
mill put in the front of boiler where
it would be convenient for the fremen
to burn in the morning. During the
night the waste got on fire from
spontaneous combustion and succeed
ed in raising sufficient steam to cause
the blower to blow of, very thorough
" soaring the Waterman who naturally
thought the boiler, which he knew had
been left without fire, was going to
explode.
Still another singular case was that
OF a fire caused in the picker room
of g. jute mill by g. man driving nail
in the ceiling. The nail glanced off and
was struck by the rapidly moving
heaters, and the sparks which were
caused thereby led to a serious blaze.